Monday, October 3, 2011

"This is expensive energy to bring to market. While natural gas energy costs 6.3¢ per kilowatt-hour, offshore wind and solar thermal plants cost 24.3¢ and 31.2¢ per kilowatt-hour respectively. I would doubt that environmental considerations could justify such large outlays.

And it is questionable if these business subsidies really achieve their aims. As the recent head of the U.S. President’s Council of Economic Advisors, Austan Goolsbee, showed in a paper several years ago, capital subsidies force up input prices, such as wind turbines, thereby blunting their effectiveness in promoting the desired ­activity."

Some history on this particular economist. When the first McGuinty government opted to cancel planned corporate tax cuts, and instead raise corporate taxes, in the first budget they executed, he noted it would kill jobs.

Then the second McGuinty government reversed course and slashed corporate taxes (replacing the revenue with consumption taxes), Mr. Mintz provided a study which claimed over time the changes would create 600,000 jobs - a figure quote endlessly by the government to justify the consumption tax changes.

Mr. Mintz is also rumoured to have written portions of Dion's ill-fated 'Green Shift' policy.